


Bridge-Passage

by Eithe



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Demisexual Katsuki Yuuri, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8645038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eithe/pseuds/Eithe
Summary: Yuuri and Victor are figuring out how to build a partnership, but it's hard when their best common language is nonverbal.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I read [lookiamnotcreative's translation post](http://lookiamnotcreative.tumblr.com/post/153468260932/lost-in-translation-on-ice-translation-mistakes) and desperately wanted to play with the idea of that hand-clasp in episode 6 having Super Important Cultural Meaning because I love things like that, especially when there's the possibility of misunderstanding. So I really wanted to write something and then it was 2 in the morning and my self-control went to bed before I did. 
> 
> Oops? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Victor is tactile. Yuuri tells himself it’s a weird western thing.

It _is_ weird. It’s very weird. Victor does not seem to have any sense of personal space or boundaries; he puts his hands places they don’t belong and asks to sleep in Yuri’s room the very first night they so much as talk face-to-face and it takes Yuri several days to realize that his own reactions to all of this are…

Well.

He’s pushing Victor away, yes, but it’s not a knee-jerk reaction the way it always has been before. He’s holding Victor at arm’s length rather than recoiling. He’s reacting out of habit, almost; because that’s how he’s supposed to react. Because it’s how he’s always reacted before.

So the touching… isn’t unwelcome.

It’s -

Actually, it’s kind of nice.

It doesn’t feel like all the times before, when other people pushed into his space and pried into his feelings, even if that’s… almost exactly what Victor is doing, especially at first. It’s not intrusive, somehow. Maybe it’s just that it’s Victor, but Yuuri thinks it might be something about them, _together_ , that’s different.

He’s always known Victor was special. It gave him something to aspire to, in a way. You don’t look up at the night sky and love it because it’s something you can touch, but as a child, wanting to skate on the same ice as his idol someday didn’t seem any more impossible than wanting to be an astronaut.

As he got older, he did realize that it would be at least as much work, but he’s never shied away from putting in the effort for things that are worth it.

He never quite let himself believe he’d achieve that dream. How many people really do become astronauts, after all? He tried, though. And he got so close. The worst part was being on the same ice and making so little of an impression that Victor gave him a press smile and greeted him like any other fan when he was slinking home in defeat.

Then Victor saw something in Yuuri’s rendition of “Stay Close To Me” that changed his mind. That inspired him - _him_! Victor Nikiforov!

The idea that together, they can be something important and different - that Yuuri could be an important component of this… whatever it is… that they’re building - is hard to wrap his mind around.

But he watches Victor, of course. He always has. It’s a little disconcerting, now, because he’s doing it from so close, and in person. Because Victor is around to be watched, and because Victor is, as often as not, watching him back.

Yuuri watches, and sees the way Victor watches him in return, and it’s…

It’s not that it makes him nervous. Yuuri is terribly, intimately familiar with nerves. It feels like a bizarre, fizzy combination of anxiety and hope and the giddiness of winning on home ice in front of people who love him.

It’s like skating.

Even when neither of them is on the ice, it’s like skating.

It’s not perfect, and they both keep trying new things, but at the end of the day the ice gives them another common language, one they both speak fluently.

And then, before he skates out for his short program, Victor grabs his hand and tells him he’s enough as himself and he has to--

It won’t translate. Westerners are weird and they don’t ascribe meaning to meaningful gestures. Touch means less in Victor’s lexicon, but it means something to Yuuri, and Victor has always been good at meeting him where he is. At reading him, even when they’re communicating in a common second language and reaching across a cultural divide.

So Yuuri has to. He threads their fingers together and his heart flips over. Before this, every step closer has been one Victor led them to; Victor stepping forward, offering something, waiting for Yuuri to meet him there. It’s a dance, and Victor has a genius for choreography.

This is Yuuri initiating something, even if it won’t translate. Their fingers thread together, fit together, and he thinks,

_Yes_.

Yuuri hasn’t ever had a romantic partner, or any particular interest in one. He’s admired people, but it was always removed, distant. This feeling isn’t either of those things. It’s visceral and immediate and disconcerting and terrifyingly large. He decided to call it love, but it feels too big for such a small word.

Yuuri looks at their entwined fingers. He’s never initiated a lover’s bind before.

He really likes it. Likes what it means, what it lets him say without the words stumbling off his clumsy tongue.

‘I want to be special to you.’

He _is_ special to Victor, he knows. He wants more, though. He wants…

He wants Victor. His attention, his affection, his everything. All of him, all the time.

Yuuri is the one who pushes forward, for once, into Victor’s space. He presses their foreheads together, shutting out all the rest of the world for just a moment, so close that those impossible eyes are all he can see.

_I want to be all that you can see. Don’t look away, not even for a moment!_

It’s too much. He shouldn’t ask it.

He does anyway:

“Don’t ever take your eyes off me.”

And then it’s time to start - it’s already started. Victor is the catalyst for so much. He’s the catalyst for this, too.

_I’m taking you away from the world. I’m showing them why you chose me. I’m asking you to choose more._

_You could hear the music when I was skating in silence. You understood what I meant, then._

_Can you hear this?_

_Do you understand?_

Other people might not. Might laugh, think it’s unlike him. It’s not, really. He found his eros. He’s refined it.

No one else can satisfy Victor; if they could, he wouldn’t have come to Yuuri the way he did. Yuuri can satisfy Victor. If Victor lets him, he will.

Victor crafted this program; it tells him a lot about who Victor is, and what he wants.

All of his programs have said something like that. Yuuri has spent his life on the ice studying Victor’s skating, and it means he knows exactly what Victor wants.

The certainty sings through him, harmonizes with the music, makes it new. Makes it his.

The applause, when he finishes, buoys him up. Maybe they see; Victor saw this in him.

Victor came to him, chose him, and Yuuri is not giving him back.

He’s flushed and panting when he comes off the ice, can’t quite meet Victor’s eyes even though he can tell they’re lit with approval.

_How much did you understand?_

Yuuri can’t tell.

Victor hugs him and says anyone would feel good seeing a performance like that.

Victor isn’t anyone, though.

_How did **you** feel? _

Victor tells Yuuri that he’s the best student.

Victor is proud of him, but - he didn’t understand. Yuuri sighs.

And then the last scores come in for Chris and it hits him in earnest.

He’s still in first. And now he has to hang on to it, or it’ll reflect on his teacher. Victor says he’s the best student? Well, now he has to prove it.

Familiar anxious terror, which had vanished before determination and possessiveness, floods back into him.

This is too much.

\-----

He manages to grab a few scattered, restless catnaps over the course of the night, but nothing like real sleep.

Every time he wakes up and checks the time, he sees that it’s only crawled a little closer to when he needs to be really awake, have all his wits about him, be ready to prove himself and try again to say--

He rolls over and mashes his face into the pillow with a choked-down noise caught in his throat.

\-----

Victor looks disappointed already, and Yuuri hasn’t even hit the ice yet. This is not an auspicious beginning to the second day of competition.

Yuuri did see what he looked like in the mirror this morning, though; the disapproval isn’t exactly surprising.

“You haven’t slept, have you?”

It doesn’t sound accusatory, probably isn’t, but Yuri can’t find the confidence and certainty he had yesterday that Victor is proud of him, chose him, wants him.

“I did!”

That’s a lie.

“A little bit, anyway.”

Not a lie. Still… stretching things, a bit, though.

Victor can tell.

_Why can you read this and not what I was all but screaming at you yesterday?_

Victor bodily drags him through the hall and he’s tired enough that it feels like being drunk - he’s almost dizzy with it. He doesn’t even think to resist being dragged out of his clothes, wrapped in a sleep mask and blankets, and tossed onto a mattress because it doesn’t feel like being pushed around so much as swept along by a concerned tsunami.

Victor is just like that. He’s a force of nature. Yuuri can’t resist him, and trying is pointless.

“Nap until this evening’s event starts. It’ll be fine.”

That tone of voice is so gentle that it makes something in Yuuri’s chest feel simultaneously hollow and warm. For all the times he felt like people were intruding on his heart, this feels like he’s carved out a place inside himself where Victor just… belongs.

And then Victor slumps over on top of him and gets heavy with sleep and Yuuri doesn’t have that sweet tone of voice distracting him from the weight of everything.

Did they set an alarm? He doesn’t know. His eyes are covered.

If they oversleep they might miss his program. That would be more humiliating than any loss he’s ever suffered, compounded exponentially by the way it would reflect on Victor.

“Victor?”

Quiet, heavy breathing.

“Victor! Did you set an alarm?”

His voice was so loud in his own ears, but still nothing. Maybe Victor is more nervous than he let on. Maybe he needs the sleep.

Yuuri stays tense and wakeful and counts the minutes. A few slip by in snatches of sleep, his body wrenching consciousness out of his grip almost spitefully, but never for long. He can hear the announcer, dimly. He’ll know when it’s time.

Probably.

The tension spools tighter against his bones.

\-----

He can’t open his water bottle. His hands shake. His muscles refuse to cooperate.

He is so screwed.

He’s only aware of mumbling when he hears a voice and realizes it’s his own.

“Yuri, were you unable to take a nap?”

Victor’s smile is unnerving.

“I did nap! I did!”

Five-minute snatches of sleep are naps. There were several, even.

And then Victor bans him from doing jumps during the warm-ups.

It cuts Yuuri off at the knees.

_I thought you believed in me._

He does it anyway, of course. And falls.

If Victor doesn't believe in him, it's really all his own fault.

\-----

Victor isn’t looking at him.

Yuuri takes out his earplugs. He almost doesn’t need to; the applause is practically vibrating through to the arena’s foundations.

And then Victor’s hands press over his ears, instead, muffling that terrifying wave of sound.

Victor is looking, again. Only at him.

Protecting him.

Yuuri can barely stand to even think it, yet, but the words he can’t say whisper in the back of his mind anyway.

_I love you._

He has to protect Victor, too, just as much as Victor needs to protect him. Victor has more of a reputation, more to lose, and he’s staked all of that on Yuuri by choosing him. Yuuri has to be worth of that. He has to be.

He has to be perfect to be worth it.

_I’ll give you everything I have._

Victor is worth everything.

“It’s almost time. We have to get back.”

He shuffles past. He doesn’t feel graceful today.

He’d give anything for the lightness and courage he had yesterday from a momentary clasp of hands. He can’t find it today - can’t say it out loud, can’t find another way to say it than touch or movement, can’t be certain he’ll live up to everything he needs to be.

“Yuuri.”

“Huh?”

Victor has his press face on. Yuuri feels like he’s falling - like he’s hit the ice, hard - before Victor even says anything.

And then he speaks, and it’s worse.

_Push it down. Push it down. You have so much practice, push it--_

He can’t. It’s too much.

His eyes are burning and he’s exhausted and it’s all too much.

_You chose me. You don’t get to take that away. Not now. Not like this._

Victor’s mask cracks even before the tears spill over, and Yuuri --

Yuuri already knew this:

Victor didn’t mean it.

So why did he say it?

“Why would you say something like that, like you’re trying to test me?”

For once, Victor isn’t touching him. This tactile man with no sense of personal space has his hands hovering in the air like he isn’t sure he should touch Yuuri, like Yuuri isn’t his, hasn’t proven it over and over.

Like Victor isn’t Yuuri’s right back.

It’s too much.

_I need you to understand!_

He didn’t want to have to say this out loud, isn’t sure he can, but he needs Victor to know.

“I’m used to being blamed for my own failures! But this time, I’m anxious because my mistakes would reflect on you, too!”

_You tried to take care of me. How could you not see it would go both ways? How can you still think so little of me?_

_How is this a surprise?_

“I’ve been wondering if you secretly want to quit!”

Almost before he’s finished speaking Victor hurries in with,

“Of course I don’t.”

“I know!”

He can’t look up.

“I’m not good with people crying in front of me. I don't know what I should do. Should I kiss you or something?”

“No!”

The refusal feels like it tears out of him.

_Victor, you idiot._

_You should have done that yesterday. You shouldn’t offer it as, what, a distraction to stop me from crying when you’ve screwed up this badly?_

_That’s not how this works._

That’s not what Yuuri needs.

That’s not what _they_ need.

“Just have more faith than I do that I’ll win! You don’t have to say anything. Just stay close to me!”

That’s all he needs. It’s all he ever needed. Victor was the one who skated it first, who made the program that let Yuuri sing it without music. How can Victor not understand?

But - Yuuri sees the words hit.

Victor missed it, before. But now Victor is looking, looking only at him.

His eyes are wide and shocked and there’s a dawning comprehension - he didn’t understand the lover’s bind, couldn’t read the truth in the program he choreographed, but he understand this.

Yuuri is so tired, and he has to be a mess, and this isn’t the place for this.

This isn’t the place.

Yuuri shakes his head, breaks eye contact, cuts Victor off before he can say anything.

“It’s almost time.”

He turns his back, keeps walking. After a half-second's hesitation, Victor falls into step behind him.

\-----

They don’t speak, but Victor puts a hand on his shoulder and walks so close that Yuuri can feel the shape of him in the air, in the warmth radiated against his back and side.

They avoid eye contact until Yuuri is on the ice.

He looks at Victor, then - really looks. He lets himself see that he’s not the only one who’s been uncertain.

_It’s my turn to take care of you._

An inside joke. A pat on the head.

He takes position, lets the music in.

He feels lighter after crying. Not just for the emotional catharsis--

_Victor’s expression was priceless._

Yuuri smiles.

The music flows and he follows, winding into it.

Victor doesn’t have the experience as a coach to know what to do with Yuuri’s mental weakness; he had to have seen it, but he didn’t know how to address it. Structural flaws, issues of technique - he’s brilliant with those. Choreography, presentation - he’s an expert. But Victor is surprisingly bad with vulnerability, it seems.

_Stupid Victor._

Yuuri is probably going to need to take the reins more often.

He flows along with the music, but it matches his train of thought. The song is about Yuri’s life on the ice, everything he’s been and done and wanted and hoped for. Yuuri has spent nearly all of that time immersed in Victor’s skating. Everything Yuuri and Victor have built between them has always flowed like this, like gliding across clean ice.

Yuuri touches down coming out of a jump, but it doesn't knock him out of rhythm.

Correct it and let it go.

How would Victor react if he made the last quad a flip instead of a toe loop? This is their best common language, the last way Yuuri has to say it. This could be the right place. He could try again. It wasn’t clear last time, but maybe...

Over-rotated. Doesn’t matter; still on his feet.

He should be exhausted. He hasn’t slept. Somehow that doesn’t matter, either.

He feels strong. He needs to be stronger. He can be. He will - he will surpass Victor’s wildest imagination, everything he’d hoped for when he skated “Stay Close To Me” and set that prayer adrift.

Yuuri knows he can do it. He felt it, he echoed it, and it brought Victor to him.

He didn’t tell Victor to watch, this time, but he knows - knows that Victor must be. Victor can read him. Meets him where he is.

Yuuri isn’t speaking a private language this time, his or Victor’s, but the one they both speak together; he’s skating it, using a program they collaborated on.

_You understand now, right?_

Quadruple flip.

He doesn’t come down quite right, but it doesn’t matter - there were enough rotations. It said what it needed to say.

It’s Victor’s signature at the end of Yuuri’s song.

\-----

Victor has his face covered.

…

Is he angry? Upset?

_Did you understand?_

\-----

Victor runs for it and--

An answer. Yuuri just needs an answer.

“Victor! I did great, right?”

_Tell me you understood._

_You’re part of this. Part of me. Stay close to me._

Victor’s eyes are all the answer Yuuri needs; they say, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

Yes; he did great. Yes; Victor understood. Yes; he’ll stay.

Yuuri is still processing that when Victor launches himself forward to kiss Yuuri in front of fifteen thousand people and the entire international broadcast audience.

When he pulls back, he’s smiling the warmest, sweetest smile Yuuri has ever seen, looking only at him.

“This was the only thing I could think of to surprise you more than you’ve surprised me.”

With rewards like that, he’ll have to do it more often.

\-----

They have time, before the Rostelcom Cup.

Victor looks delighted and shocked every time, like surprise is a gift he doesn’t get very often. And every time he offers up affection and intimacy in return like they’re Yuuri’s due.

They aren’t; these feelings are a gift, too, and Yuuri does his best to be mindful of that even when he’s grabbing a fistfull of Victor’s shirt to haul him down a few inches just because Victor is there and Yuuri loves him and he deserves to be kissed.

The first time it’s tentative, a quick brush of lips that startles him more than Victor and sends him skittering away like a nervous animal. He can’t stay unsure in the face of obvious welcome, though. This isn’t a new feeling, for either of them, just a new expression of it.

Every time Yuuri steps forward to assume a little bit of control, Victor cedes it gracefully. Every time he pulls, Victor bends.

His smiles get softer and sweeter and wider.

_Stay with me and never leave._

Victor threads their fingers together and brushes an apologetic kiss over Yuuri’s knuckles.

Yuuri grins.

It works, this partnership they’re building. They’re learning to speak each other’s languages, to meet each other half-way.

It’s… kind of nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
